


A Right Bastard

by Pollyanna



Category: Hornblower
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-21
Updated: 2006-06-21
Packaged: 2017-10-07 21:37:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/69488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pollyanna/pseuds/Pollyanna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Edrington's nameless Sergeant Major</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Right Bastard

When he was born, his mother called him Nathaniel for her father, and he took his father's surname of Keene, although his parents never stood up in church to be married.

When he was five his mother told him that the day he would die was written on his forehead, and nothing he could do would change it. He never feared death after that.

When he was ten, he watched his father strap on his wooden leg in the morning, and listened to the soldiers' songs he sang in the evening.

When he was fifteen he was sober as he took the shilling from the recruiting sergeant. His father came to see him off and told him, "You'll do things you cannot speak of to any man. Don't be proud of them." He'd marched for many miles before he realised his father had spoken to a man, and not a son.

When he was twenty he knew there were worse things than death. He'd seen them, and he'd done them. He was never proud of himself for the doing.

When he was twenty-five he sat by Sergeant Major Leadham's death bed, as he shat his guts out with dysentery. In the night, he thought Leadham was delirious when he said, "You have to watch the men. No, not watch them ... see them. Feel them, and then you'll know what to do."

When he was thirty his company would have laughed themselves sick if any one had said Sergeant Major Keene had feelings. But he knew which new recruits to stand next to old timers so they wouldn't run, and who would run wherever he placed them. He knew when one more order would make a man rebel, and if he needed to give that order. He knew which officers to follow into battle, and sometimes those officers weren't shot in the front.

When he was thirty-five, he looked at Major the Earl of Edrington and thought, "He'll do."

THE END


End file.
